Co-creator talks ghoulish fan project
Something creepy is in the works. We mean that quite literally. Last month, an image was posted online previewing a cinematic tribute to “Creepy,” the magazine-sized anthology comic book series established in 1964 by Warren Publishing. With little to go on, Shock Till You Drop did a bit of digging and discovered this tribute is being created by Neal Kennemore and John Wrightson, son of renown artist Berni Wrightson.
The project, as we have come to learn, was spearheaded by the two at first as a make-up and photo experiment to bring the “Creepy” icon Uncle Creepy to life. “We thought, âLet’s get some footage of the make-up moving’ and from there it evolved into trying to get some footage to create a short film,” Kennemore, a third generation FX sculptor and son of The Thing‘s Jeff Kennemore. “It was a big undertaking because after the make-up we decided to get full costumes and we built an actual set in my garage. It snowballed into a huge project.”
Kennemore asserts that their project is completely a personal undertaking, unrelated to Dark Horse Comics’ recent revival of the “Creepy” brand. In other words, they’re doing this out of their fanboy-ish love and they plan to make no money off of it. “We’re just both huge fans of Creepy and Eerie and we’ve never seen those characters brought to life, other than what the Chiodo brothers had done. Johnâs dad is Berni so obviously there’s a history there and he got a kick out of seeing them brought to life because he had been drawing it for 30 years and he had never seen it in reality.”
“The design, in an ideal world, Creepy and Eerie would be put together as puppets,” he continues. “But we don’t have the budget for animatronic puppets. So we took a real approach with the make-up but there’s still a lot of caricature to it. We reference Berni’s interpretation of Creepy and [Frank] Frazetta. It’s very [Rob] Bottin in the look, but cartoony in the shape with realistic detail. Hopefully, it shows in these days of computer-created characters that rubber is a force to be reckoned with in terms of realizing creatures and characters.”
Consistent with its origins, Kennemore tells us their project has evolved even further. No longer is it a simple demonstration of their make-up; Kennemore and Wrightson are using Uncle Creepy as a horror host (apropos given his duties in the comic book) and they’re out to recreate some classic “Creepy” moments.
“We’ve taken it a step further. It’s structured in a way so it’s an introduction to a television show. We’re getting ready now to go back and shoot an opening sequence, almost like Jim Henson’s Storyteller. It’s an opening sequence where you see snippets of other characters and stories. We’re going to replicate some of the classic Creepy covers with this montage. The meat of the short is Creepy introducing a story, likes Tales from the Crypt, but there’s this other characters that keeps butting in. It’s like Looney Tunes meets Evil Dead, but it’s not cheesy. It’s done in good taste.”
When and where can you see this cinematic tribute? Kennemore says their planning to unveil their work at Monsterpalooza which runs April 9 – 11 in Burbank, California. Their make-up will be on display and a video presentation is in the works.
Says Kennemore, “We just hope people dig it.”
Source: Ryan Rotten, Managing Editor
